Workout Wednesday: Osceola (Seminole) XC

flrunners.com visited with the Osceola boys and girls cross country last week in preparation or more so in the middle of a busy and tiring four day stretch including a hard Wednesday workout, Thursday easy run, and back-to-back races on Friday evening in the Babe Zaharias Twilight XC Challenge and Saturday morning in the Jim Ryun FCA Invitational. All after racing the prior Saturday including a dominant team win the girls squad at the Dunbar Tiger Jamboree in Fort Myers. 

All part of an early-season training plan and schedule put together by Osceola coach Pete Eagelson to continue to train hard and build strength towards the end of season goals as well as simply use the races to work their athletes into shape. Two years ago, Eagleson did the same strategy two years ago with his team Babe Zaharias Twilight and Lecanto Invite on consecutive days with good results for the season after asking his athletes to attempt the daunting task of doing two 5K races in less than 24 hours.

Eagleson works with the distance runners as well during the track season, which saw many of his runners really drop down both the 1600 and 3200-meter times including top boy William Stone drop a 9:18 3200, while girls had 7 returnees run between 11:17 to 12:21 for the 3200.

On Friday, the Osceola girls finished as close runners-up behind FL #2 ranked Cambridge Christian at Babe Zaharias while on Saturday less than 15 hours later winning the team title at the Jim Ryun Invite despite the focus being more on pack running and treating the races almost like tempo workouts. The top five girls all came in together in a short wave of a few seconds in a thing of pack running beauty at Holloway Park in Lakeland on Saturday.

All those results were coming off short rest of the workout filmed on Wednesday, which the squad had a mile to two-mile warmup from the school over to nearby Lake Seminole Park where they ran 6 x 800-meter repeats which finished on a short steep hill before a short rest onto the next repeat. 

The girls' team might be the best challenger to defending 3A state champions Winter Springs led by Caroline Wells. The depth of Osceola as well as the pack running showed over the weekend will likely be the key to knock off the champions. Osceola already has 6 girls who have run in the 20-minute range or faster for 5K this season.

Kennedy Downey has been a huge addition to the squad as the team's top finisher in the first three races despite never having run cross country before and only running track. She was a runner-up at the Dunbar Tiger Jamboree with a time of 19:38. Meanwhile, Abigail Clements at 19:45 and Avery Latto at 19:49 both went under 20 minutes as well. Heloise Pinto and Taylor Ladd provided additional security and depth for the squad with state meet experience and 20-minute 5K performers.

Meanwhile, Andrea Ballestero is actually the team's top returnee from last year and has been running just outside the top 5 as she works herself back into shape from an injury during the track season. If Ballestero, who also was their fastest at 3200 before injury at 11:17 best, can work towards getting closer to her 18:50 5K PR shape from a year ago, Osceola could be even more dangerous than they already are.

While the Osceola boys' team might not be viewed with the state's top tier programs right now like the girls, they are certainly a team capable of being a state qualifier in 3A out of a very competitive region including teams to the South of them towards the Fort Myers and Naples area. Part of the main reason for them to check out their regional venue course last week hosted by Dunbar High in Fort Myers.

Currently, they have the 17th fastest team score among their season-best performers in the entire state with a 17:25 season-best average amongst their top five runners. They finished third in the team standings on Friday at Babe Zaharias Twilight Challenge behind two formidable squads in Plant (4A) and Berkeley Prep (2A) in the 23 team field. The Osceola boys finished fourth at the Dunbar Tiger Jamboree amongst 21 schools.  

William Stone, racing on tired legs, has not had the 5K race yet this season to match up with his 9:18 3200 track effort, with a 3rd place finish at Dunbar (16:25) and 5th place finish at Babe Zaharias (16:45). After a strong start to his 2020 cross country season including a mid-season PR of 15:56, but fading at the end, Stone is looking to really drop his best races with fresh legs at season's end for 2021. 

Rounding out the top 5 scoring line-up includes Wes D'Angio, Ian McManus, Patrick Cappelli, and Adam Foster. Three of the four have already run in the 17-minute range this season with Foster just over 18 minutes right now with a season-best of 18:08.

It would be fair to assume that the Osceola cross country runners slept pretty well on Saturday night and their bodies said to stay in bed a few more hours longer on Sunday morning too after the week-long grind that was last week for them with training and racing.